But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

- Ephesians 2:4-5

All of our transgressions and sins are no match for the grace and mercy of our God. His love conquers every time. Death can’t stop him. Neither can transgressions. And this is good news.

God’s love motivates his mercy and grace. He saves us because he loves us. Seeing our condition – stuck in sin and missing out of the good and beautiful life – the God who loves us had to do something. He couldn’t sit idly by and watch us lose ourselves.

God has all of the resources he needs to accomplish our salvation. He has more than enough mercy – he’s rich! His love is extraordinary. And he has the power to raise dead men and women to life.

We believe God has the power to help us because we’ve seen what he did in Christ. Jesus died and was buried. His life left him. But God raised him from the dead. Jesus put his life down and picked it back up again. And the new life Jesus experienced (and still experiences to this day) is a tremendous and transformed life. Jesus didn’t just sit back up and shake off his grave clothes; he initiated God’s long-promised resurrection from the dead.

We’ve been included in Christ if we’ve placed our faith and trust in him. When he steps into new life, he brings us with him. Everything that’s his he shares with us. We’re raised from the dead in him. Today, that looks like us experiencing new spiritual life and power in his name. Some day, on the other side of our own experience with the grave, we will be raised in our bodies as well.

God’s great love for us has the final say in our lives. No thing you’ve done or failed to do will get to have the last word on you. No addiction will bind you forever. Death won’t keep you down.

Take a moment today to thank God for his great love for you. Celebrate his love. Reflect on it and rejoice before you do anything else today.